“That sounds wonderful, Lady Catherine. Thank you. I’ll be ready by the time the carriage returns.”
“Be sure that you are.” Lady Catherine swept past me in a swirl of golden satin that perfectly matched Severine’s and Alexandre’s underskirts. As soon as the door closed behind her, I sprinted up the stairs to the attic. One of my old court dresses, the nicest one I owned, was already laid out on my bed. All I had to do was slip it on and apply minimal makeup. I just needed to be presentable enough to be admitted to the palace. Any extra frills would be a waste of time. Attracting the attention of the vapid dauphin wasn’t important. Finding Lady Françoise and asking for her help was all that mattered.
Chapter Sixteen
The carriage wasn’t coming back for me, of course. As soon as I finished getting ready, I ran outside and sat on the stone bench just next to the front door to wait, my ears straining for the clopping of horse hooves or the clatter of carriage wheels. I’d hoped that the cool early evening air would soothe my strained nerves. It did, for a little while. But I’d been waiting on that bench for over an hour now, and there was still no carriage. Lady Catherine wasn’t going to send it to fetch me. She’d lied.
I shouldn’t have been surprised that she lied. On the day she and Papa married, Lady Catherine had said that we were going to be family, and that was a lie too. But I wanted to believe so badly that this time would be different, that she would treat me if not like a daughter, then at least like a human being with feelings.
I stood up slowly, my backside sore from sitting for so long, and went back inside the house. After getting changed in the attic, I returned to the kitchen with a bucket of soapy water and a scrub brush. I wanted to fall into bed, but I couldn’t, not when the fireplace was so filthy. Lady Catherine had asked me to clean it the other day, and I was sure to feel the brunt of her rage if I let it go again.
I attacked it with single-minded focus. Sitting back on my heels, I took a deep breath and wiped the sweat from my brow. When I glanced down at my hand, I was met with the sight of a grimy palm covered in soot.
“Perfect,” I muttered to myself, using my relatively clean wrist to rub my face only to have it come back black with ashes.
I should have been crying. I wanted to cry, to release the mess of emotions inside me. After the night I’d had, crying would have been an entirely reasonable reaction. My stepfamily being gone made this the perfect time to indulge in a few tears, but I couldn’t even muster up the energy. What was the point of mourning my old life? My lot wasn’t going to miraculously change because I wished it would. My stepmother’s behavior made that clear. The hope of finding Lady Françoise at the ball and escaping from the château was a flickering ember I’d cradled in my palms, burning hot but utterly unstable. I’d trusted Lady Catherine to keep her word, but instead she’d dumped ice water on the ember, snuffing it out completely. Now all I was left with was an empty château and a cold, soot-caked fireplace. Crying was pointless. It changed nothing.
The heavy brass door knocker thudded against the front door once, twice, three times. I groaned and clambered to my feet. Who could be knocking at this hour? It wasn’t the coachman, surely. My stepmother was nothing if not punctual. If she was going to send the carriage back for me, it would have been here already. No, it had to be someone else. Could I just ignore them and pretend no one was home? But knocks rang out again and again and again, beating out a steady rhythm on the oak door. With my luck, it would be another debt collector come to demand money we didn’t have. I was not in the mood to argue and negotiate for just a few more months’ leniency. It was getting harder and harder to convince them that Lady Catherine was actually going to pay what she owed.
I strode to the front door with purpose. Any sign of weakness would cause the debt collectors to pounce. With what I hoped was a neutral yet firm expression on my face, I threw open the door to face the unwelcome visitor.
A coachman in fine livery stood on the threshold, a surprised look on his face at the force with which I opened the door. Or perhaps he was surprised at my dreadful appearance. This wasn’t one of Lady Catherine’s coachmen; his uniform was completely unfamiliar to me. A small yet luxurious carriage done up in blue with golden scrollwork waited in the courtyard. There was a crest on the door, but I couldn’t make out any identifying details in the dim light.
“What do you want?” I asked sharply.
The coachman roused himself from his stupor and straightened. “Madame wishes to speak with a Lady Cendrillon de Louvois. Is she in residence?”
Me. Some mysterious lady wished to speak with me. I could hardly believe it. No one had called on me in over a year.
“Who is this lady of yours?” I asked, with more bluster than I felt.
Before he could answer, the window of the carriage clattered open.
“Adam, what’s taking so long?” said the woman in the carriage. “Are you having trouble finding her? Do you need my help?”
My gasp was so loud, the coachman looked at me strangely again. I knew that voice. No. It wasn’t possible. Not after all this time.
Pushing past the coachman, I sprinted down the stone steps into the courtyard, stopping a few feet from the carriage. I held my breath as the carriage door opened. My entire body was trembling, as if I had a fever. I must have looked mad, standing in the courtyard, shaking and covered in filth, my hands clenched so tightly my nails nearly drew blood. If it wasn’t her, I really would go mad. My hopes could only be dashed so many times.
A woman wearing an emerald-green dress, her chestnut-brown curls falling to her shoulders, stepped down from the carriage. It was her. It was my marraine, Lady Françoise.
She scanned the courtyard, her gaze dancing from the dark woods surrounding the château to Adam, the coachman, until she finally spotted me standing just inside the pool of light emanating from the torches positioned on either side of the bottom of the staircase. The shock in her hazel eyes must surely have mirrored mine.
I let go of the breath I’d been holding. The sight of her only made my shaking worse. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
“Cendrillon,” she said, barely more than a whisper, but I heard her clearly in the quiet of the courtyard.
She reached out for me and smiled, like she’d done so many times before, and for the moment, all the anger I’d held for her fell away. I ran to her and threw myself into her arms, nearly knocking her over with the force of my hug. Her embrace was warm and gentle and very, very real. I wasn’t dreaming. Lady Françoise was finally here, after so long. She was smaller than I remembered. Or maybe I was taller. I buried my face in the crook of her neck and started sobbing. I guess I could cry after all, big, heaving sobs that would have been embarrassing any other time. But not now.
“Ma douce, what’s the matter? Oh, don’t cry. Please, don’t cry,” she said, but I could hear tears in her voice as well. “Ma douce, douce fille.”